Do you know a hero? Are YOU a hero? Jeep would like to thank you...

[DolphinTattoos]

Just thought I'd pass this along.........

Jeep's Everyday Hero Contest



Know Any Heroes?

Heroes – they keep you safe and protect you. Military personnel. Sworn law enforcement officers. Paid and volunteer firefighters. Emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics. You probably know some heroes. Maybe you are one.

Through the Jeep® Everyday Heroes and Military Incentive Program, Jeep has recognized those who deserve it most. It’s one way we can say thanks.

Here’s another way: Nominate someone you think we should honor as a true Jeep Hero. Each month we’ll post new stories about Jeep Heroes. Twelve Jeep Heroes will be honored in total, three in each category: military, police, fire and EMS. After twelve Jeep Heroes have been recognized, we will select four of them (one from each of the Jeep Heroes categories) as Grand Prize Winners of an all-new new Jeep Grand Cherokee. If the hero you nominate is one of the four Grand Prize winners, we’ll give you $500 worth of Jeep gear, too. Just for helping us help them.

Click here to nominate someone

The contest runs through 10/31/05. Four will be given away, one to each category.

Here are all the rules

[DolphinTattoos]

Oh yea, and tell the story here too.

We often read, way too much, about the bad stuff. I'd like to hear more about the good stuff.

I'm not so sure that this qualifies as a hero story for the contest, but he is MY hero.

When I was in high school I started working at a gas station that was a cop hangout. Of course, I got to know the regulars and became friends with some, and some better than others.

My childhood was pretty screwed up and I wasn't exactly a model student. I had this one cop that somehow read me like a book, recognized that I was headed for disaster and took a personal mission/interest in me getting my "stuff" together.

He took on the role of a father figure for me (even though he was only 10 years older than me) I guess you could say, and litterally kicked my *** when I screwed up. It took a couple years, but he got me on the right track. Lots of lectures and smacks up side the head, but we did it. Long story short, if it weren't for him, I'd probably be in a gutter right now.

[valycop]

I'm not trying to make myself out to be a hero because I'm not, but your story of the cop that helped you brought to mind a young lady who I helped many years ago.
Not to drag this out too much the girl was 16 and she had come from a home with no father. She was doing poorly in school and on occassion she would smoke marijuana and drink. One day I received a call for a domestic dispute at her home. She was inside with her mother and they were yelling and cursing at each other with the mother finally telling me that she was going to throw her out of the house because she couldn't deal with her daughter anymore.
I called social services because I felt to leave the girl there with her mother would continue to make the situation worse and result in the girl running away from home. Well the social worker came to the Sheriff's Office where I had brought her and the worker said she was going to place the girl in a foster home. Well the girl just broke down and started to cry because she had been placed in foster care before and had had a very bad experience. She pleaded with me to contact her uncle (her dads brother) to let her stay with him. Well the social worker would have none of it and said she would have to go to a foster home or be placed in juvenile detention. I contacted the uncle and he agreed right away to have his neice come stay with him. I told the social worker to remain at the Sheriff's Office with the girl while I went to see the uncle and to check out his situation. The social worker was angry, but agreed to remain.
I drove to the uncles house which was fairly close to the office and spoke with him at length and he allowed me to come into his home and look around. I was satisfied with what I saw and spoke with the aunt as well and I was convinced that this would be a better environment than foster care. I went back to the office and spent the better part of an hour convincing the social worker that my idea was better and overall everyone would be happier including the social worker. Well the social worker finally agreed and I drove the girl to the uncles house. When she got out of my cruiser she started to walk toward her uncle in the yard. She suddenly spun around ran to me threw her arms around me and started to cry. In between sobs she thanked me for all of my efforts and said she would not let me down.
I am thankful that I can end this story by saying that staying with her aunt and uncle had a profound effect because she made peace with her mother, graduated high school, has a responsible job at one of our local banks and she sends me a Christmas card every year in, which she tells me how happy she is that I took that extra time and trouble for someone who was a complete stranger only hours before on that day eight years ago.
You wanted a little bit of the brighter side of law enforcement well this sure was for me.

[DolphinTattoos]

Great story!

You went above and beyond and that is definately a hero in my book.

You guys have such a tough job - you see the lowest of the human form on a daily basis, and to still have compassion is commendable. It would have been so much easier for you to just let SS take her and be done with it and on to the next call, but you didn't. Great work!!

[decuervo]

My mother-in-law is a retired nurse and my father-in-law is a retired doctor. A couple of years ago some guy down the street accidentally shot himself in the chest while playing with a gun while drunk. His wife came running up to the house because she knew my in- laws from one of the housing district meetings. So they go over there, plug up his chest wound, and kept him alive until the EMT's arrived. Not too shabby for a 83 year old man and his 53 year old wife huh? Yea, they're heroes.

[wantedtobecop]

In my opinion, Dep. Mike R. of our county's SO is one. I've read a few times of his stops in the paper, but having been involved in a bust of his makes one realize what you LEOs go through (Poor eyesight and a couple other physical problems are why my moniker is wantedtobecop). It was March of '02 or '03 and I was working third at the truckstop where I still am. One pick up comes in and the passenger throws a bottle down on the parking lot (MY lot since I have to take care of it till first shift came in :mad: ). At the time the company was paying to have a dep. there for peace keeping due to the restaurant being open 24 hours also.

The restaurant manager confronted the bottle dropper, and mentions it to Mike. Long story short, passenger has a warrant FTA or something and is typical combative drunk. Though he was cuffed, he got ahead of the deputy and opened the door with his forehead (in fact, tried to sue everyone involved, and I stated very simply the truth, that he did it on his own.).

I was back outside by that time having put away the broom and dustpan from the bottle and was finishing pulling my trash cans. He does his automatic door bit and once outside starts fighting with Mike. It took him, 2 other cops me and a rest' customer to hold him down to get the hobbles on him. The police dog was going ape $%#@ trying to get out and help.

After cleaning up the blood ( bleach and hot water) from his escapade with the door, I obliged and wrote a statement of what I saw. When asked about it later by someone I replied " I may not have the best history/relationship with cops, but it was the right thing to do; to help another human being, cop or not." Deputy Mike is definitely a hero.

[KnightRider3702]

I'm a hero.......if you want a story then ask...

[DolphinTattoos]

I'm a hero.......if you want a story then ask...

I thought I did right here:

Oh yea, and tell the story here too.

We often read, way too much, about the bad stuff. I'd like to hear more about the good stuff.

[KnightRider3702]

:p

...this one time....in Baghdad.....lol

In all seriousness though.....upon hearing that my Platoon Sergeant's(PSG) tank caught fire along RTE CUBS and he was shot throught the forearm with a 7.62mm bullet, I "suggested" to my Tank Commander(TC) that we push forward of the "Convoy of Death" to their location for an assessment. Upon my TC's "yes", I broke off convoy and navigated up to the road where the burning Tank remained. My PSG and his crew had successfully evacuated the tank onto other vehicles by the time we had arrived.
From there, my tank had taken the point position. We continued along, from out of the tall grass on both sides of the road were Iraqi troops that had made a gauntlet of RPG fire. Several RPG projectiles flew right past my eyes, or managed to whiz past the front slope of the tank. I managed to successfuly drive the vehicle tactically through the gauntlet and made it out unscathed. Pushing on through the city outskirts of Baghdad, Identified a sniper trying to take out my TC and other exposed personnel while my gunner prepared to destroy him and the perch he was on. The sniper jumped from his water tower perch with his weapon before being shot and tried to prepare to shoot again......I finished my gunners job with the tracks. Pushing through we had removed several dangerous anti-air weapon assets, vehicular roadblocksand other dangers to lesser armored allies. We then proceeded to secure and hold at the junctions of HWY 1 & HWY 8...the major highways spanning through Baghdad. Our mission was to seize and hold the junction to allow 2nd BDE to push through and advance.....and hold we did, against several truck bombs, APCs, and ground troops.
I WAS THE FIRST TANK IN BAGHDAD
B22 "Black Out Fridays", B Co. "Black Knights", 1/64 AR "Desert Rogues"(Armor asset attached to 1/15 IN "Dragons", 3rd BDE "SLEDGEHAMMER", 3rd ID "Rock of the Marne")
TC- SSG Robert Byrd
GNR- SGT Harry Morgan
DRV- SPC(PFC) John DeVito
LDR- PV2 Jerold Peterson

That is one of many stories.....that is my personal claim to fame